Internet Gambling Law Debated by a Pro Gambler

Can the U.S. government really ban internet gambling? In this news article, a professional sports gambler makes his view known.

Glen Walker, a professional sports bettor in North Carolina who places up to 70 bets a week of $2,000 to $5,000 each during football season, does not think so. "They're not going to stop the offshore sports books," Walker said. A crackdown will "just force it back to the black market."

Last week, one sports wagering site, BetOnSports.com, a publicly traded company in Britain, became the focal point of an American crackdown on offshore casinos, where gamblers anywhere in the world can use the highly profitable sites to place wagers on sporting events. They can also play casino games like blackjack and poker from their personal computers.

Federal agents arrested the British chief executive of BetOnSports, David Carruthers, who was in the United States on a flight layover. He is in custody in Fort Worth, Texas, awaiting a hearing on his detention.

On Tuesday, the online betting casino company said it had fired Carruthers, terminating his contract and removing him as a director as a consequence of his detention. And on Wednesday, a federal court extended until Monday a temporary restraining order that prohibits BetOnSports PLC from taking bets from the United States.

In Washington, the House overwhelmingly approved legislation recently that would clamp down on Internet casinos in part by restricting the ability of American financial institutions to process wagers.

The legislative-prosecutorial one-two punch appears to be the most concerted effort yet by the federal government to undermine Internet gambling in an era of publicly owned offshore casinos.

Still, few experts expect the crackdown to do anything more than dent the industry. Other experts see the recent moves as little more than a cat-and-mouse game serving only to benefit land-based casino gambling operations.

July 27, 2006
Posted By Terry Goodwin
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com    Previous Page | Internet Gambling | Top Online Casinos | Submit News!